City Of Dreadful Night

For life is but a dream whose shapes return,

Some frequently, some seldom, some by night

And some by day.

The City is of Night; perchance of Death,

But certainly of Night; for never there

Can come the lucid morning's fragrant breath

After the dewy dawning's cold grey air.

The world rolls round for ever like a mill;

It grinds out death and life and good and ill;

It has no purpose, heart or mind or will.

And all sad scenes and thoughts and feelings vanish

In that sweet sleep no power can ever banish,

That one best sleep which never wakes again.

Yet why evoke the spectres of black night

To blot the sunshine of exultant years?

Yet I strode on austere;

No hope could have no fear.

The street-lamps burn amidst the baleful glooms,

Amidst the soundless solitudes immense

Of ranged mansions dark and still as tombs.

The mighty river flowing dark and deep,

With ebb and flood from the remote sea-tides,

Vague-sounding through the City’s sleepless sleep,

Is named the River of the Suicides.

As I came through the desert thus it was,

As I came through the desert: All was black,

In heaven no single star, on earth no track;

A brooding hush without a stir or note;

The air so thick it clotted in my throat.

The City is of Night, but not of Sleep;

There sweet sleep is not for the weary brain;

The pitiless hours like years and ages creep,

A night seems termless hell.